Fed up with my thermometer(s), help

[Rich Ullsmith]

Can somebody recommend a brand with a illuminated disc that is also water proof? And where I can obtain it, also. My digital fluctuates all over the place, and my glass one sometimes has a gap in the top three millimeters of mercury when it's over 60f.

While I got ya'll here, does anybody know the brand name of the plastic reels with the big, wide flanges for inserting the film leader? I got two but need more, and there's no brand name on it. (Adjustable from 35mm to 120, too.)

Thanks for the help up front. Check back in the p.m. Rich

 

[RoNinHeart]

Samigon makes the autofeed reels like this, I've also seen them under the name AP Photo but can't remember where...

http://tinyurl.com/2w37qh

edited to add

I have one of these liquid crystal thermometers and it works great and seems pretty unbreakable and it's cheap enough.

http://tinyurl.com/27vw3k

Porter's also has the same reels under the name Ultra

http://tinyurl.com/2ngdmj

 

[zenrhino]

Can somebody recommend a brand with a illuminated disc that is also water proof? And where I can obtain it, also. My digital fluctuates all over the place, and my glass one sometimes has a gap in the top three millimeters of mercury when it's over 60f.

While I got ya'll here, does anybody know the brand name of the plastic reels with the big, wide flanges for inserting the film leader? I got two but need more, and there's no brand name on it. (Adjustable from 35mm to 120, too.)

Thanks for the help up front. Check back in the p.m. Rich

While I very much do not recommend the "stick" type digital thermometers (because they get uncalibrated easily with a good knock) that you can buy in restaurant supply stores, I do highly recommend the Tru-Temp combo digital thermometer/timer for $10 at Target. The stick is on a long cord and the guts are in a separate base. I keep wondering when its going to get off kilter, but Ive tested (both in frozen water slurry and boiling water) and it comes up aces after 3 years. Between the timer and thermometer, my process has gotten both easier and more consistent.

 

[Arvee]

Another vote for Tru-Temp products at Target. They work well.

Fred

 

[fschifano]

I'm using a stick type kitchen thermometer from WalMart that cost me a whole $8US. It matches up with my Paterson Color Thermometer, and reads correctly in ice and boiling water. In any case, it's accurate enough for E6 and C-41 work. They go bad once in a while, but they're cheap enough to replace. I really don't sweat the B&W work and never temper B&W paper chemistry. Room temperature is plenty good enough for that job unless your darkroom is too cold to bear. Film, up to 4x5, is done in a daylight tank that is partially submerged in a tempering bath.

 

[Rich Ullsmith]

Yeah, my darkroom now in March is about 55f. The thing that pushed me over the edge though, last night washing a couple rolls of 120, I'm watching the glass thermometer falling 65, 60, 55 . . .wtf? Put it on straight hot water, and it's still falling. In the time it takes to scratch my head, it's at 95 and climbing! I chase this for a few more cycles before I figure out the wife is running a bath upstairs, running straight hot then straight cold, then straight hot . . .ah, just right. You know how that goes.

 

[fschifano]

Yeah, I know. That's why I stopped worrying about wash water temperatures too. I'll get it set up just right, then someone flushes the toilet. Now I use straight cold tap water for prints. Takes a little longer in winter than in summer, but it beats sitting there watching the thermometer. Film gets washed using the fill, agitate, and dump Ilford method. The wash water for that is a couple of gallons of water tempered in the same bath as my other processing chemistry.

 

[edz]

Can somebody recommend a brand with a illuminated disc that is also water proof? And where I can obtain it, also. My digital fluctuates all over the place, and my glass one sometimes has a gap in the top three millimeters of mercury when it's over 60f.

Then get a good one. (I tend to often recommend the Kodak Process Type-3)

While I got ya'll here, does anybody know the brand name of the plastic reels with the big, wide flanges for inserting the film leader?

Those the the A-P knock-offs of Paterson reels.

http://www.apphoto.es/docs/eng/tanques_espirales.htm

They are compatible and fit in the tanks from Paterson, Durst (late model, also Filmetta), Tetenal (also Filmlab-1) and, of course, A-P. They don't fit in modern Jobo tanks.

 

[Nick Zentena]

Buy an adjustable and then get some sort of reference. Every so often adjust the adjustable and put the reference some place safe.

 

[edz]

Buy an adjustable and then get some sort of reference. Every so often adjust the adjustable and put the reference some place safe.

Actually one does not need an adjustable. Any cheap glass spirit thermometer is sufficient. Even spirit thermometers don't change their values. The point of checking them is to detect damage. If they change readings against a reference its a good indication that they are no longer intact. One just needs a good and readable thermometer as a reference to hand calibrates against. I tend to recommend precision (mercury) thermometers with 1/10C readability and traceable to a national reference (DIN or NIST) at the desired point. One typically will need at least two: one for ~ 20C and another for ~38C. They are, however, neither cheap nor robust (long narrow thermometers with thin glass). The advantage of the Kodak Process Type-3 is that they are relatively robust (its enclosed in a stainless support and its glass is very thick), accurate (just not very readable), traceable (multiple points are calibrated against an NIST reference) and can often be found on the surplus market at very low price points. Given the problems of temperature stabilization the range of readability of the Kodak is more than sufficient for our applications and the accuracy is very high.